


Good Morning

by RuleBritannia



Series: A good day [1]
Category: Cabin Pressure
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Gen, Pre-Slash, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-25
Updated: 2012-05-25
Packaged: 2017-11-05 23:32:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/412248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RuleBritannia/pseuds/RuleBritannia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A not-so-good morning for Arthur, turns into a weird morning for Martin, and the day just might be looking up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Good Morning

**Author's Note:**

> For this prompt requesting A/M Fluff: http://cabinpres-fic.dreamwidth.org/4207.html?thread=6531439#cmt6531439

There were good mornings and bad mornings. Some mornings Martin woke up feeling absolutely rested, his eyes clear, full of energy and with a sensation of freshness on his skin that usually had him sighing in contentment. These were extremely rare, though. There were days he never fully woke up, when his joints ached, his head felt heavier than it ought to and no amount of coffee would counter it. But then there were just… mornings; neither good nor bad and, unless something tipped the scales either way, he really wasn’t thinking about how he felt, and he just pushed through the early hours in a sort of daze. Considering his luck, those uneventful, daze-filled mornings were always welcomed. 

That particular morning was one of the latter. His back was sore from a moving job the day before, but that was par for the course, and other than that, Martin had no feelings on the day so far, one way or the other. 

Carolyn was walking out of the portacabin as he arrived, sporting her usual angry-bulldog expression, and nearly crashed into him. His hands went to his head, to prevent his Captain hat from falling off. Carolyn just looked at him up and down, but not precisely with contempt, he noted. 

“Martin, you’re here,” she barked.

“Yes. Good morning, Carolyn.” He was reminded of Arthur’s theory about alpha dogs, as he had to make a visible effort not to avoid the woman’s fiery gaze. He just hoped whatever had her in a foul mood wasn’t his fault, this time. “I’m here, yes.”

“Well, surprise, surprise! Douglas isn’t.” She moved away from the door and waved a hand derisively at him. “The briefing’s on the table, as is the weather report. We have an hour till take off, with or without an FO, so get ready. I have to run to the hangar. Apparently the engineers here don’t understand the concept of dead-lines!”

The woman stormed off, leaving Martin staring after her, wondering if he should have said something else. Well, never mind, saying nothing was better than saying the wrong thing, wasn’t it? He let go of the breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding and walked inside. Arthur was there, and he immediately jumped from his seat, smiling brightly when he saw him.

“Morning, Skip!” The young steward rushed to the coffee machine to pour him a cup. Martin opened his mouth to reply, but before he could utter a word, there was a cup in his hand, and an Arthur smiling a bit maniacally at him. “There you go, coffee! And Mum made it, so you’ll even like it!” 

Now, Arthur was always a bit like a squirrel on steroids, but this nervous energy was starting to look a bit forced, and hence, a bit ominous. There was still time for the morning to turn sour, so Martin sipped his coffee and eyed his friend carefully.

“Everything alright, Arthur?”

“Yes! Of course!” He practically shouted, and widened his smile. 

“Arthur…” A thought crossed his mind and Martin softened his gaze. “You talked to your dad, didn’t you?”

Arthur frowned, perplexed for a few moments, then returned to the alarmingly unnatural smile.

“No, no. Gosh, no. Why would you think that?”

“Well,” Martin shrugged, a bit lost. “You seem a bit… I don’t know. Are you sure you’re ok?”

Arthur nodded emphatically.

“Yes! I’m… er… I’m… er…”

His eyes widened in terror and his stomach dropped down to his knees. 

“Oh God, what’s happened?!” He grabbed both of Arthut’s shoulders, while the younger man stared at him a bit startled. “Is Carolyn ill? She’s not dying is she?! Or… oh, the engineers… It’s GERTI, isn’t it? Oh God,” Martin let go and grabbed his head, already thinking about all the rejections from the airlines he’d now have to apply to.

“Skip?” Arthur stared at him with confused concern in his eyes. “Are _you_ ok? You’re not flipping out, are you? Cause Douglas always says you’re always so stressed out you’ll flip out one day and start wearing potato bags and living under a bridge, and I always tell him you won’t because I wouldn’t let you live under a bridge and potato bags wouldn’t fit you, but you are always stressed out so….” 

“What?” Martin blinked stupidly, confused and, well more confused, but also slightly affronted and at the same time a little touched. “No! No, _I’m_ ok. But you obviously aren’t and… and… If you aren’t then, it must be something …” Martin sighed, running a hand through his face. “I’m sorry, Arthur. Just… If there’s anything you want to talk about,” He ducked his head, a bit embarrassed, and waved his hand in the air. “You know…”

Arthur smiled sheepishly, no longer looking so manic.

“Thanks, Skip. It’s… nothing really. It’s just… Did I tell you about Poppy?” Martin nodded and sat down, his knees still trembling from the rush of adrenaline, and the other man did the same, looking as pensive as Arthur was capable of looking. “Well, she ended things with me last night, is all.”

“Oh, Arthur,”

“Nah, it’s ok. She was really nice about it! She said all sorts of nice things about me. It’s just she met this really smart psychiatrist. You can’t help falling in love, can you? I’m sure she’ll be really happy.” 

Seeing him so deflated was a tad more unsettling than the psychopathic front from a moment before, but at least Martin now knew what it was about, so he could focus on the issue. Still, what kind of advice could he give? His love life was not non-existent; it was in the negative side of the scale by now. This was Arthur, though. A bit of cheering up, even if on the clichéd side of things, and he’d be right as rain. So he settled for:

“I’m sure you’ll meet someone whose right for you, you’ll see.”

Arthur didn’t seem to hear him, though.

“He’s really cultured,” he continued, quietly, “And knows all kinds of interesting things. I mean, I do know lots of things, but mostly about Egypt and polar bears, and she didn’t seem very interested in that.” Arthur paused a bit, looking at his hands. “Do you know if you can make yourself smarter somehow?”

Martin gaped like a fish, trying to come up with something to say without putting his foot in it, which was very unlikely to happen. Guilt hit him as a wave. Seeing Arthur upset about his intelligence- or lack thereof- made him think of all the times he’d teased, even mocked him about it, thinking he didn’t care. Arthur, of course, took his silence as an answer and smiled a bit sadly. Figures he would put his foot in it without even speaking.

“Yeah, I didn’t think there would be.” He took a deep breath, just to let it out as a long, tired sigh later. “I never thought it should matter, really. Thinking too much about stuff you feel only mucks things up, doesn’t it? I thought loving someone should be about wanting them to be happy and taking care of them and hugging them when they’re sad and smiling at them when they’re happy, and have all that in return… But I guess I’m wrong.”

A funny sort of feeling settled in Martin’s gut; a kind of melancholy, or longing, at Arthur’s words, that had him frowning. For once, he decided to listen to his friend, that may have not been the brightest bulb in the box, but was apparently a genius where the heart was concerned, and didn’t think about it before replying.

“You’re not wrong,” he said softly, and made a point of staring straight into Arthur’s eyes. “And when you finally find the right person -because I know you will- they will be the luckiest person in the planet.”

If he had thought about it, his words would have sounded like canned pleasantries, empty even. But he forced himself not to, and hoped Arthur could see he’d meant them wholeheartedly. The soft, tender smile Arthur gave him then hinted that he had nothing to fear, so, intending to avoid the awkwardness that was sure to follow, Martin reached for the weather report. 

“Except for a mild wind, it should be a smooth flight from here to Bern. Why don’t you go check if your mother has murdered anyone over…” he was interrupted abruptly by an Arthur suddenly attached to him in a fierce hug.

“Thank you, Skip,” said the young man in a small voice, before kissing his cheek quickly and rushing out of the portacabin. 

Now, the morning had certainly left the neutral territory a long time ago, but he just sat there, dazed for entirely different reasons, trying to understand what it had become. It definitively wasn’t bad, though.


End file.
